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We’ve been in Cambridge this weekend – at Sidney Sussex College. The reason is that Professor Eugenio Biagini is one of an increasing number of historians who are exploring the story of the Southern Irish Protestants after Irish Partition. One of the contemporary sources turns out to be the sermons written by my maternal grandfather, Canon Ernest Bateman. So I’m going to meet his students this morning to have a talk about all that. I have a slight feeling that he knows much more about all this than I do.

Meanwhile I added another to my own sermon archive last night with this about the light and the dark – testing my belief that it should be possible to date a sermon from its content by starting with Oskar Pistorius

I spent last Sunday morning with our congregations in Glenrothes and Lochgelly. We have had difficult times in the Central Fife Group, which also includes our congregation at Leven. But Thomas has come from Canada to offer leadership after a long clergy vacancy. And now there are signs of new life, possibility and hope.

Incense.

The waft of it hit me as we walked into the church. These congregations have an underlying catholic tradition – but this wasn’t about moving ‘up the candle’. More about evoking the memory of an historic tradition of worship and the confidence and rootedness which came with it.

Beyond that was something which related to my musings at the String Quartet concert recently – and to a passing comment on a Radio 4 book programme which I was listening to in the traffic. It’s about getting in touch with the transcendent in some way. After all that is what worship is for. But if its too much of a ‘small congregation struggle’ or if we overdose on friendliness and accessibility …. then strangely the transcendence moves further away

If we had been talking about it, we might have had a lengthy discussion about the first of the Nine Marks of Mission – Worship which renews and Transforms. But the waft of incense did it better.

It was a very poignant conversation a long time back with a Catholic colleague. As it unfolded, it became clear that he had followed his vocational journey trusting that the issue of clerical celibacy would change while there was still time for him …. Now he was in mid life and there was no sign of any change. Indeed it couldn’t even be discussed.

So the sudden foray into this area by my friend and colleague Cardinal Keith O’Brien is very welcome. It’s welcome because, looking across the fence from a very different kind of church, internal dialogue about difficult issues releases energy. And that will be good for the Catholic Church. All of us have friends and colleagues among the Catholic clergy. The ‘married to the church’ ideal is a noble vision. But ministry today is tough and there is great loneliness.

But of course, there is much more to this issue. In our College of Bishops meeting this week, we shared concern that there are many places where our presence in mission is inhibited by the absence of rectories. Too much property was too easily sold off during the difficult years. And we noted the ongoing consultation about the SEC Pension Fund.

Married – or partnered – clergy means infrastructure. It means stipends, houses and pensions. But of course it also makes possible a vocational response from those who do not feel that they have a particular vocation to celibacy.

Meanwhile the world awaits Alison’s handbook on the clergy marriage …

The meeting of Church Leaders with the First Minister is an annual event. One of the good things about devolved government is that there is excellent access at many levels. But this meeting is an annual ‘set piece’ encounter and one that involves a great deal of consultation and preparation – most of which is done by the excellent Chloe Clemmins of the Scottish Churches Parliamentary Office.

We met in the Cabinet Room at Bute House, which is the official residence of the First Minister in Charlotte Square. It’s a beautiful building and we were given a brief tour. The subjects under discussion were Marriage – in the light of the Scottish Government’s proposals for Same Sex Marriage – the Scottish Independence Referendum and the contribution of churches and faith groups to local communities in Scotland.

You will perhaps be surprised to know that I find myself unusually silent in this kind of meeting. The reason for that is that that those who represent churches can be assumed to have some kind of common view of the complex issues of the day. But of course it isn’t like that. And the result is a complex and – without being over-critical – somewhat incoherent discussion of very complex issues. Around the table are those who believe that gay marriage is a legitimate freedom and maybe a right; those who believe that the church ‘owns’ marriage and those who think otherwise; those who believe that marriage has ‘always’ been exclusively heterosexual; those who are clear about ‘God’s law’, etc., etc.

And in the presence of those who can speak with confidence and clarity about this, I go into my ‘not that kind of church’ mode. Because I represent a church which believes that internal diversity is a precious thing which needs to be nurtured and protected by honest dialogue across difference. And if there is clarity to be stated, it involves a commitment to listen to the clarity of others.

Liturgy is powerful stuff – and seldom more than on Ash Wednesday. No matter what words are used at the Imposition of Ashes, I always hear ‘Remember O Man that thou art dust .. and unto dust shalt thou return.’ Much of the liturgy which I meet day in day out seems to me to have lost the capacity to have that impact. It’s nobody’s fault – often just the inevitable product of the search for accessibility and the desire to project warmth and friendliness. I’ve often worshipped at those altars. But there is more – as the first of our Nine Marks of Mission suggests when it speaks of ‘Worship which renews and inspires’

I had a bit of time to think about these things last night as we sat in the company of a small congregation in Perth Concert Hall listening to the Michaelangelo Quartet playing Beethoven. What the audience gets is music played by people who obviously delight in what they are doing – why else would they be doing it far from home on a snowy night for a small audience in Perth. Delight and total commitment. And the intimacy and the unity in which they do enables concepts of space and time to bend – and they use the music to create meaningful and usable silence. It’s infinitely nuanced and subtle and therefore moving in a way which defies explanation. And that it seems to me is much of what worship should be about but seldom is …

Caroline, our Casting the Net Officer, has been asking me to write something reflective about our recent Clergy Conference. Apart from reflecting that the Casting the Net Officer sounds like some kind of lepidopterist ….

Several months on, I am still thinking about Archbishop Rowan Williams’ sermon at the Memorial Service for Sir Paul Reeves, former Governor-General of New Zealand. He quoted from the modern Maori poet, Glenn Colquhoun:

The art of walking upright here,
Is the art of using both feet.
One is for holding on.
One is for letting go.

In that context, he was referring to the multi-ethnic, multi-cultural tapestry of life in New Zealand. It’s a sort of dance, a movement. It involves tension and fluidity. If you stand ‘solid’, you don’t get it. It’s elegant possibility … I have sometimes talked about the relationship which a priest has with the people of the church was being like an elastic rope – a bungee cord, if you like. The pastoral relationships of care, mutual esteem and shared faith are what holds the relationship together. But if the relationships are to be creative and productive, the rope then has to be stretched and stretched almost to breaking point.

Our Clergy Conference with David Runcorn was about ‘Living with Resilience’ – which sounds fairly stretchy to me. At other points, we said rather obliquely that it was about the difference between differentiated and undifferentiated leadership. Better to say that it is about the dance – the dance of clergy ministry in which we are ‘with our people’ and ‘all together in the church’ while at the same time we exercise a ‘parent in God’ authority and prophetically call the church to mission. It’s a dance. If both feet are planted on the floor, nothing happens – indeed clergy can be and are broken because of that inability to move confidently and resiliently. And if they learn to move – to see themselves in relationship with people – part but not totally of .. little bit of priestly separation … – then people find that the dance gives elegance, purpose and beauty to our relationship with God and with one another.

Probably not what Caroline wanted .. but there we are.

The resignation of Pope Benedict came ‘out of the blue’ for all of us. I produced this statement in response:

“Christians of all traditions will have heard of the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI with regret. He has been a distinguished holder of his office, widely respected for his scholarship and his spirituality.
“Pope Benedict’s visit to Britain was a significant event during his term of office and I was privileged to meet him. His speeches showed his willingness to engage with the issues of faith in a complex and secular society.
“The challenge of leading a historic faith institution in a time of rapid change is very great. Pope Benedict has made a difficult personal decision which shows the mark of a humble servant of Jesus Christ. We wish him a peaceful and holy retirement.”

Inevitably speculation turns to the choice of a successor. But the more interesting discussion is about whether this decision to resign and retire rather than to ‘serve until the last breath’ changes the nature of the Papacy. Some of it is obviously to do with the unavoidable demands of leadership. I suspect that the pressures may be even greater in churches which attempt to stand against the pressures of the world than in those which attempt to accommodate to them.

But beyond that lies the much more subtle area of the way in which leadership in our various faith communities is very different. In the Anglican Communion, we have been learning that some of our misunderstandings have been to do with assumptions which we have made about leadership authority and what leaders can ‘deliver’. The Archbishop of Uganda and the Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church are both Anglican Primates. But their ability to speak authoritatively or to make commitments on behalf of their churches is very different. In Scotland, the Moderator and the Cardinal are seen by their churches as very different kinds of leaders. And the inter-faith area is different again.

I think that to accept that a Pope can resign and retire is a radical change. It means that a younger candidate can be chosen. And, as Benedict’s statement implied, it becomes possible to
think about stamina, performance and resilience. I happen to think that leaders have a ‘shelf life’ after which change is welcome and good. I always remember meeting the former Archbishop of Sweden just before his retirement – he said simply, ‘Nothing graces leadership like the way you lay it down’

This is Revd David Mackenzie Mills – newly-instituted Rector of St Paul’s, Kinross. Saturday’s Institution was a big day for David and his wife, Anita, and for the congregation at St Paul’s for whom the vacancy has been as always too long! David comes from Canterbury Cathedral and, before that, from Trinity College, Cambridge. Ministry offers variety.

It’s also an important moment for us in the diocese. We have been having too much change and too many vacancies. We are now in a period not just of filling spaces – but of waiting to see what a new group of clergy will bring to us in fresh energy and experience of other places

Another day another thought

It’s the noise. I got hold of a local SIM card so that I could be phoned. Sharon listened for a bit and said, ‘what is all that noise?’. To which the answer was ‘just the usual incessant horn blowing and other noises of everyday life in India.

It’s all very colourful, requires skilful driving and nobody gets anywhere fast. The more serious question is about the safety of it all when you are on the open road outside the city. I wish I had a photo of the family with young children on a motorised three-wheeler travelling down the wrong side of the dual carriageway …

And I didn’t mention the all-pervading smog. First seen when you turn on the forward-facing camera as the Emirates plane approaches the runway. You see the runway as you hit it and now a moment before.